Please join us on Monday, December 1 to welcome our guest speaker Ken Yule. He will address our Society on “Winston Churchill, Home Secretary.”
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HOME SECRETARY, 15 Feb. 1910 – 24 Oct. 1911 A conservative by birth but a liberal in principle, the young Churchill had left the Tory party over his free trade beliefs which conflicted with the party’s protective tariff policy. No love was lost between him and the “hangers and floggers” who derided his reform efforts. He became Home Secretary in a minority government at a time when a number of controversial issues continually threatened to precipitate another election. Lloyd George’s “People’s Budget”, and the Lords’ resistance to it, the Irish question, and the suffragette movement were plenty to keep the government occupied with self-preservation. As one of the Liberal Party’s leading spokesmen and potential future leaders, Churchill involved himself in all the battles. |
Ken Yule will explore Churchill’s role in the party, his struggles to improve post-Dickensian prison conditions and his difficult relationship with his departmental officials, his agonizing clemency decisions, employment legislation reforms, and involvement in the strikes and public events of the time.
A Vancouver native, Ken Yule attended Athlone School and Kitsilano High School. After graduating from UBC in arts, he studied law at the University of Toronto. During postgraduate studies at the University of London he was among the crowds at Churchill’s funeral. He practiced law, first as a civil litigator and then conducting criminal prosecutions and appeals for the federal government, and was appointed Queen’s Counsel by the Province in 2003. Ken and Jenny have celebrated 46 (and counting) years of marriage and have a son and a daughter, both married, one grandson and one granddaughter.
A lifelong Churchill enthusiast brought up to believe that Churchill saved civilization by sheer determination and eloquence, Ken has been a member of the Society since 1989 and is a past director.
Date: Monday, December 1, 2014
Location: Royal Vancouver Yacht Club, 3811 Point Grey Road, Vancouver, B.C.
Time: Reception and cash bar starts at 11:30 am; Lunch at 12:00 pm (includes a glass of wine)
Cost: $55 for a Member, spouse or a family member; $65 each for a non-Member
Dress is business attire
Please inform our Administrator, April Accola, of your attendance by email at aprilaccola@hotmail.com or online at www.winstonchurchillbc.org/contact.